By acquiring information on prospect and existing customers, understanding their needs better, you will be better able at influencing their decisions. This form of acquisition is marketing research, where there are various forms of choice to attain varying data and result. This research will help provide assistance to help make informed business decisions given the circumstances and information acquired.
Market Research
This form of research gathers information regarding the market, such as: market size, market volume, value of the market, etc. This form is useful for those entering a new market, understanding how the market has been like in the past and observe trends to better help with the transition into a new market.
Product Research
This form goes into the features and technicalities of the product – such as how the product has been performing and others alike. This research is done to understand the actual product and its success in the market. By assessing your products, you can quickly hotfix or rectify issues that may arise on the product(s).
Distribution Research
This form of research goes into where products should be distributed and sold, where customers would want to purchase their desired product(s). Understanding and knowing exactly where the optimal place would be to sell your product(s) is crucial in impacting the level of product exposure, which then impacts the making of good returns in the long and short run.
Conducting Research
- Research the problem:It is crucial to define the research problem, the more specific the better. This will help set parameters on your research and help you focus on what you are really looking for. Casting your net too wide with a broad definition is not advisable, but neither is being too narrow as you may miss out on important findings.
- Set your objectives for research:Try to set your objectives that encompass the following traits: Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic, Targeted (acronym-SMART). This will help your research by specific and focused when you are trying to find out more about the issue you want to tackle. Objectives help direct you in the path of your research, keeping you grounded.
- Create the research plan:With a research plan, it will contain various factors that need to be considered, such as: type of data, resource demand, access, etc. The two types of data that you will normally handle is secondary and primary data.Secondary data is something most research will collect over primary as it is readily available and accessible. This form of data can come in the form of reports, external sources, government publications, newspapers, magazines, directories, etc. The internet enables greater ease when trying to access secondary data, where even companies publish their research for you to access either free or paid. This is the most cost-effective way to attain data as you don’t need to physically conduct the tests and gather the data, it is cheaper and takes much less time to do so. However, this form of data is not flawless and does come with its issues. It may not be too relevant to the problem you are trying to solve, and the context may be different due to datedness, location, culture, social and economical factors, etc.This is where primary data shines as it is gathered by you, first hand, therefore it can be specific, relevant, timely, and properly analysed. The way you want to structure this part of the research comes in two forms: qualitative data and quantitative data.Quantitative data refers to data based on numbers, where data collection is based on statistics to analyse.Qualitative data refers to ‘soft’ data. This revolves around individuals’ attitudes, opinions, perceptions.Next would be observation, where the researcher has no contact with the respondent where he/she is merely observing the behavior.Experimentation is where the data is collected in controlled conditions suited to fishing out plausible problems. This is conducted by holding defined constants and variables in various experimentation runs.
- Analyse and present findings:After collecting the necessary data, you would need to make use of the data and analyse them. This will take time and practice as it may be difficult to make sense out of all the numbers and feedback acquired. Quantitative data is generally viewed as easier to analyse as it can be transitioned easily to graphs or spreadsheets for comparative viewing. However, Qualitative data is slightly harder as you can’t just use the quotes of a few, you would need to analyse the trends and views over all the data collected. Once done, you would then be advised to share your findings to your superiors and your team as it can help them make better informed decisions as well based on your new findings. Encouraging this cross sharing of data from research will help the organisation as they slowly compile a database which can be used for future reference.
Marketing research is crucial in providing information and data to help make better decisions and it should always be conducted in an ethical fashion.
Source: Develop Your Marketing Skills by Neil Richardson, Ruth Gosnay
Written by Darien D. and Kim D.
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